


introduction to contortion

by Lirazel



Series: the toaster 'verse [1]
Category: Infinite (Band), K-POP RPF, K-pop, Korean Pop, Kpop-Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Sungyeol can’t come to the phone right now.  He’s upside down at the moment."</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Myungsoo's in love with Sungyeol, Sungyeol's in love with Myungsoo, and of course they're both too thick-headed to realize it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	introduction to contortion

**Author's Note:**

> This is cliché and fluffy and more than a little ridiculous and half the awesome stuff in it I didn’t come up with (see end note. After you read it). But how could I not, after those awesome pictures from the Japanese "She's Back" photobook? This may or may not end up being a whole little series featuring all of the guys; we’ll see. Thanks to [whelmish](http://whelmish.tumblr.com) for permission to use your amaaaaazing ideas and to a crdbsarmiento for help with the details. Y'all are the best!

“What if I change my major to circus performing?”

Myungsoo doesn’t even look up from his camera’s viewing screen when he hears the question. He knows Sungyeol is still standing on his hands in the corner, though, so he does entertain the idea. If he did look over, maybe he could catch a glimpse of some skin where Sungyeol’s shirt is riding up. But right now the likelihood of that doesn’t seem to outweigh his laziness, so he keeps his eyes on the pictures he’s flipping through.

“I don’t think they offer that, unfortunately,” Myungsoo muses, deleting fourteen different pictures of a passed-out Dongwoo taken from various very unflattering angles. That’s the last time he lets his camera out of his sight while Woohyun is around. “Which is a real shame,” he continues, squinting and turning the camera to try to figure out what this next set are of. “Because you would make the greatest clown ever. I mean, you already are one. You’d just be getting paid to act like an idiot in front of large groups of people instead of begging them to buy you drinks and getting shot down.” 

Sungyeol probably wants to shoot off some smart remark in response to that—he wouldn’t be Sungyeol if he let something like that go—but he doesn’t get a chance because his phone goes off, the tinny tones of “Paparamericano” filling the room. “Can you get that?” he asks instead.

Myungsoo reaches out and grabs the phone off the crate in front of him that they’re using for a coffee table, thumbing it on as he does. The crate’s got a pile of books on top, big square ones full of shots by Myungsoo’s favorite photographers, all the volumes Christmas presents from his doting great-aunt. All together, the collection is probably the most expensive thing either of them owns. Actually, there’s no probably about that. They’re the stereotypical broke college students, so stereotypical that sometimes Myungsoo thinks they’re walking clichés. “Dumbass’s phone, what do you want?” he answers and ignores the squawking noise Sungyeol makes behind him.

“Is that any way to talk to your hyung? Kids these days have no respect at all, I’m telling you. None of you have any manners at all and think the world revolves around you and….”

Myungsoo blocks out the rest of the tirade and finally glances over his shoulder. Sungyeol’s face is red from staying upside down like that for so long, but there’s no skin to be seen. Fucking belt. “It’s your nagging grandma.”

“I’m busy. Do you think they at least have a contortionist class?” Sungyeol replies. 

“Damn, I hope so.” Myungsoo can’t help but laugh at the thought of Sungyeol twisting his long limbs into pretzels. Not to mention the flexibility factor….

“Are you even listening to me at all?” Woohyun somehow sounds even more indignant over the phone than he manages to in real life, which is saying something.

“Not really,” Myungsoo answers truthfully.

“Can I please talk to the person whose phone I called?”

“He can’t come to the phone right now. He’s upside down at the moment.”

Woohyun sighs. “Of course he is. Listen, tell him I’ve figured out which girl Hoya’s all obsessed with. And that your rent is overdue. Again.”

“He says he’s going to send mafia members to shatter your kneecaps with tire irons if you don’t pay up,” Myungsoo informs Sungyeol.

“Aren’t you going to contribute this month, you leech? I know you got paid for that last wedding you did. And don’t think I don’t I still resent the fact that you didn’t take me along,” Sungyeol replies, his feet waving crazily in the air above him.

“I already told you there was no open bar, so you would have been miserable anyway and ended up causing trouble and losing me my paycheck like you did last time. And no—I just bought a new lens.”

“Of course you did. Tell him he’ll get his money when he gets it. Is that all he was calling to nag me about?” 

Myungsoo shrugs. “He also said something about Hoya and a girl.”

The sound that Sungyeol’s body makes when it crashes to the floor makes Myungsoo wince even as he laughs, but Sungyeol bounces up again like he’s made of rubber and hurls himself over the back of the sofa, swiping the phone from Myungsoo’s hand. He also ends up half on top of Myungsoo, but Myungsoo isn’t going to complain about that.

“Who is she? Is she way out of his league? Just how into her is he? How can we use this information to torture him? Tell me _everything_!”

Myungsoo chuckles as Sungyeol shouts questions into the phone and then makes excited noises as Woohyun apparently answers them. His bony knee is digging into Myungsoo’s side now, his other long leg sprawled out across Myungsoo’s lap, but Myungsoo ignores the discomfort. Sungyeol had just taken a shower before he decided to stand on his head in the corner, and he smells really good. 

Myungsoo goes back to trying to figure out what the next four or five pictures are of. The color there along the edge resembles skin, but there’s a big chasm of black taking over the screen that he can’t quite make sense of. Sungyeol’s shampoo must be the coconut scent this time. Myungsoo loves coconut, but Sungyeol hates it; it must have been on sale.

“This is going to be _glorious_ ,” Sungyeol yelps, smacking Myungsoo on the back in his enthusiasm. “Meet me at the coffee shop at four tomorrow so we can plan our attack, okay?”

He’s about to hang up, but Myungsoo grabs the phone back from him. “Hey, hyung, what the hell were you taking pictures of the other night? Besides Dongwoo’s drunk faces, I mean.”

“What? Oh, I was trying to get the inside of Sunggyu-hyung’s mouth.”

“Gross! What the fuck, hyung! You can’t stick my very expensive camera lens into Sunggyu-hyung’s _mouth_!” If Woohyun were here, he’d be in danger of bodily injury; nobody messes with the sanctity of Myungsoo’s camera.

He can practically hear Woohyun shrug. “I was drunk. And he was lecturing. He opens his mouth really unnecessarily wide when he talks sometimes. I was fascinated.”

“Uh-huh. You’d think with the amount of fooling around you and Dongwoo-hyung do, you’d quit perving on Sunggyu-hyung all the time.”

Sungyeol, listening, snorts and then lies down, his back bowing over the arm of the sofa so that all Myungsoo can see of him is his ribcage down. Damn, he’s so _long_.

“Well, if he’d quit being so damn sexy all the time—“

“Okay, that’s enough, hyung. I don’t need to hear about your hard-on for hamster-hyung. I’m hanging up now.”

He does so, tossing the phone back onto the pile of books. “I can’t believe you used to date that idiot.”

“I don’t think ‘date’ is quite the right word.” Sungyeol’s voice sounds strange in this position, kind of muffled. 

“Well, whatever you two were. How did you manage it without killing him? And more importantly: why can’t you get away from him now that you two broke up or whatever the hell happened?”

Sungyeol pops back up, face red again and hair a mess. Myungsoo resists the urge to fix it. 

“Well, technically this is still his apartment. If he kicks me out, I won’t have anywhere to go. And neither will you.”

Myungsoo snorts. “I wouldn’t be homeless long. Unlike some people who would end up sleeping in a cardboard box behind the student center, there would be people lining up to take _me_ in.”

Sungyeol’s grin is wicked. “Yeah, I think Krystal would be _happy_ to open her home to you—and not just her home.”

Myungsoo grabs the battered throw-pillow from underneath his arm—it’s got a couple of questionable stains on it, but it’s just the right amount of cushy for him to lounge on when he’s doing his homework, so they haven’t tossed it yet—and shoves it into Sungyeol’s face. Sungyeol wriggles and flails, his elbows and knees knocking into Myungsoo, but Myungsoo doesn’t let him go until he’s sure Sungyeol has learned his lesson. When he finally tosses the pillow aside, Sungyeol’s face is an even brighter shade of scarlet and his hair looks like a rat’s nest or whatever that saying of his great-aunt’s is.

Myungsoo only gets a glimpse of it, though, because Sungyeol lunges at him, and a second later they’ve fallen off the couch onto the hard wood of the floor, wrestling and trying to get each other into a headlock. Myungsoo’s elbow bangs against the corner of the crate as they go down, but whatever. Sungyeol’s on top of him and panting hard and did he mention that he smells really good? Myungsoo’s nose might end up in the nape of Sungyeol’s neck a couple of times, but that’s entirely coincidental, of course.

They’re still roughhousing, tussling around on the floor, and making the couch slide further and further towards the wall each time they bang into it, when the front door opens and Sungjong strolls in.

“I see the kitchen table’s gone now, too,” he notes coolly, as though his hyungs aren’t rolling around on the floor like puppies.

“Woohyun took it last night,” Sungyeol chokes; Myungsoo’s finally managed to get his arm around Sungyeol’s neck.

Sungjong hums in response. “Dare I hope that he hasn’t taken the blender yet?”

“Do we have one of those?” Myungsoo asks Sungyeol as Sungyeol slams him up against the couch. It jerks back under the force with a sound that says that it probably scratched up the floor. Oh, well. They’ll just put a rug down so Woohyun doesn’t notice.

“Yeah, I think we tried to make margaritas once, didn’t we?” Sungyeol shoves his cold hands—his hands are always ridiculously cold for no reason Myungsoo can fathom—up under the hem of Myungsoo’s shirt, and Myungsoo yelps as he feels the coldness against the small of his back. 

“You two are pathetic,” Sungjong sniffs, heading towards the kitchen. “Do you ever actually eat anything but cup ramyun and snacks with no nutritional value whatsoever?”

“That’s the one bad thing about Woohyun moving out,” Sungyeol pants, pushing Myungsoo back to the floor and flopping his long body down on top of him. “Remember when he used to cook for us?”

“I’m taking the toaster, too, you two never use it. Has he actually moved out for real, then?” Sungjong asks, coming back out of the kitchen with a blender tucked in the crook of his arm and the toaster held under the other. 

“Nah, not officially. We’ve still got a shit ton of his stuff in all the closets and stuff,” Sungyeol says, rolling off of Myungsoo and back onto the floor himself. The fight has kind of died down, and now all they’re doing is kicking their legs at each other. Sungyeol’s got the advantage there, but Myungsoo isn’t giving up yet.

“I don’t know why he doesn’t just actually move in with Dongwoo-hyung and Sunggyu-hyung. He lives there anyway. When was the last time he spent the night here?”

“Two weeks ago,” Sungyeol answers, his foot slamming into Myungsoo’s shoulder. Myungsoo grabs it and yanks Sungyeol closer to him. “But he was drunk and he spent the whole night on the kitchen floor, so I’m not sure that counts?”

“It really doesn’t,” Sungjong answers dryly. “Well, if you two are done with murder or foreplay or whatever it is you’re doing, I’d appreciate it if you could keep it down. Hoya-hyung’s studying for his political science exam tomorrow. He doesn’t need your sound effects interrupting him.”

Myungsoo is really glad his face was probably already red from the horsing around; the last thing he needs is for Sungyeol to see him blush. He releases Sungyeol’s leg and sits up, running a hand over his hair. “Aren’t you going to invite us to eat whatever it is you’re about to cook?” he asks. 

Sungyeol gets in one last kick before evidently deciding it’s a draw and sitting up himself. “A good dongsaeng would. You know your hyungs never get a well-balanced meal.”

“And whose fault is that?” Sungjong shoots back. “You are definitely not invited. If you set one foot in our apartment tonight, I will castrate you with a dull knife.”

Both of them shiver at the threat. Knowing Sungjong, he’d really do it, too. Sometimes Myungsoo thinks that Sungjong is actually a demon disguised as an extremely pretty boy in order to maximize his ability to do harm to humans.

“And Hoya-hyung may come over later to hang out,” Sungjong adds.

“Aha!” Sungyeol bounces to his feet, clapping his hands with glee at the thought of something new to make fun of the younger boy about. Myungsoo can’t keep the grin off his face as he watches him. “Does that mean Miss Bora is coming over tonight? Is our little Sungjongie going to get some action?”

Sungjong’s ears turn a bit red, but he keeps the haughty look on his face. “So what if it does? She is my girlfriend, after all.”

“Yeah, and how you swung that one, I’ll never know.”

Sungjong sticks his nose in the air at that. “I asked, she said yes. And you’re one to talk—it’s not like you’ve been getting any since Woohyun-hyung moved on to Dongwoo.”

It might be Myungsoo’s imagination, but he kind of thinks that Sungyeol shoots him a quick glance out of the corner of his eyes. But probably it’s his imagination. He picks at a stray thread sticking out of the hem of his pants.

“Well, make sure you use protection. You wouldn’t want to knock her up with a little Jjongie baby,” Sungyeol says, waggling his eyebrows. He turns to Myungsoo. “Can you imagine Sungjong as a dad? Having to change diapers and not getting any of his beauty sleep because the baby keeps waking him up crying all through the night?”

It’s probably a good thing Myungsoo’s already on the floor; that way he doesn’t have to fall onto it laughing. Sungjong rolls his eyes at the two of them and turns to go. “Whatever, hyungs. Remember what I said about the unsharpened knife.”

“No glove, no love!” Sungyeol shouts after him, setting Myungsoo to giggling again. Sungyeol grins at him, but it only takes a second for the moment to turn awkward, Myungsoo’s laughter dying away and both of them avoiding each others’ eyes.

“So,” Sungyeol says finally. “Want to make prank phone calls to Sunggyu-hyung and see how quick we can make his lisp come out?”

“Okay!”

 

When Sungyeol wakes up to the sound of his very annoying alarm clock—a quacking duck, a gift from Dongwoo, who’d thought it was hilarious and still laughs every time he sees it—there’s a heavy weight on top of him and someone is drooling on his neck. He groans and flips himself over, dislodging Myungsoo as he does.

“You _again_?” he rasps, trying to untangle himself from the covers and Myungsoo’s limbs. 

Myungsoo is _not_ a morning person, so he just makes an inhuman noise and buries his face back into the pillow.

“If I’d known you were going to always end up on the futon with me, I never would have offered to let you have the bed. I was trying to be _generous_ ,” Sungyeol says, standing and stretching his long limbs. He’s the opposite of slow-rousing Myungsoo; once he’s awake, he’s awake. And nothing wakes him up quicker than realizing that Myungsoo’s sprawled out on top of him. Again.

Myungsoo makes some sort of sound into the pillow that Sungyeol thinks is supposed to actually be words, pulling his knees up under him so that his ass sticks up in the air, the way a little kid sleeps. Except there’s nothing childish about that ass or about what Sungyeol thinks when he looks at it. He turns away quickly, cataloguing different kinds of coffee beans in his head.

Myungsoo is still making not-word-noises, so, to distract himself, Sungyeol reaches out and grabs the pillow, jerking it away. Myungsoo makes a startled sound, then twists his neck around to look up at Sungyeol, cracking open only one eye. Like this, his hair messy and his face all crumpled up with tiredness, he looks like a kitten disturbed from his nap. Sungyeol feels the urge to pet him, tamps down on it, and hurls the pillow back at him. “What was that?” he asks, and if his voice cracks, well, it does that a lot anyways.

Myungsoo actually manages to form words this time. “Good luck on your test thing.” His voice is sleep-rough and his eyes still aren’t open all the way, but his smile is genuine. “Kick its ass.”

 _I love you you’re so cute I could die I love you let’s have sex I love you let’s get married._

Maybe Sungyeol’s face is a little bit flushed when he turns away, grabbing up a clean-ish shirt from the pile on the floor and snagging yesterday’s jeans off the desk chair. “It’s just a peer evaluation thing, it’s no big deal.”

“But it’s a big part of your grade, right?” Myungsoo asks sleepily, eyes falling closed again as he flops over onto his side. Sungyeol thanks the great barista in the sky that Myungsoo’s ass is now out of view.

“Twenty percent.” No clean underwear? Eh, he’ll wear some of Myungsoo’s. He grabs a pair of boxers out of the clean-clothes laundry basket, the contents of which never quite manage to get folded and tucked into drawers.

“Yeah, like I said. Kick its ass.” Myungsoo’s voice kind of trails off at the end of the sentence; he’s probably fallen back into sleep again. But Sungyeol doesn’t let himself look back at him; there’s no need to torture himself with the sight of a warm, sleepy Myungsoo curled up in his bed. With a sigh, he heads to the shower. Hopefully they’ll have hot water this morning. God, he really needs some coffee.

 

Myungsoo sighs as he pulls on some clothes, not really paying attention to what he’s grabbed—the shirt is probably black anyway, almost everything he owns is since Woohyun went on his Great Plaid Purge and shredded half of Myungsoo’s wardrobe before Myungsoo could save the rest by promising to give it away to charity ( _Woohyun had been less than thrilled by that: “Great, now we’ll have ill-clad poor people, too!”_ ). Yet another morning where he wakes up on top of Sungyeol and Sungyeol acts like it’s nothing out of the ordinary. He knows it’s stupid to expect that Sungyeol will flip them over and press him into the mattress and screw his brains out, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t hope he will. That’s why he keeps doing it. The first couple of times he woke up with Sungyeol underneath him, it was because he’d sleepwalked and hadn’t realized what he was doing. That’s not entirely out of character for him; he used to wake up on top of Moonsoo back home sometimes. Actually, that’s a lie—he’d wake up when Moonsoo shoved him off of him and onto the floor. Sungyeol doesn’t do that, thankfully, just pushing him onto the other side of the bed and climbing off the futon like Myungsoo’s just a cat he found sleeping on top of him instead of his best friend who happens to be so in love with him he can’t see straight. 

Not that Sungyeol knows that, of course. Every time Myungsoo thinks of telling him he imagines Sungyeol’s reaction and tosses the idea as far back into the recesses of his mind as he can. Sungyeol wouldn’t be a jerk about it, probably, but he might laugh because Sungyeol laughs at almost everything, and Myungsoo just couldn’t bear that. Even worse would be if he acted all awkward afterwards. Or, more awkward, these days.

Besides, if Sungyeol had any feelings for him at all, they’d already be together. The whole sleeping together thing is a huge hint that Myungsoo’s interested—he couldn’t possibly be more obvious, right? But since Sungyeol hasn’t acted on it, he must just be afraid to reject Myungsoo outright. Myungsoo tries to tell himself that he doesn’t care, but he knows it’s a lie. He knows Sungyeol is into guys as well as girls because he and Woohyun had that thing at the beginning of freshman year, so it must be that he just sees Myungsoo as his friend. And Myungsoo values that, values Sungyeol as the first real best friend he’s ever had. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want more.

Which is another reason he keeps climbing into bed with Sungyeol. Because he’ll probably never get more, but Sungyeol at least lets him have _that_. Sungyeol’s a light sleeper and he snores sometimes and he’s really bony and that should probably drive Myungsoo crazy, but he honestly doesn’t care, not as long as Sungyeol lets him be that close to him.

God, he’s so pathetic. And he’s going to be late for meeting Dongwoo for breakfast if he doesn’t leave _now_.

He grabs a bowl of sugary kids' cereal in the cafeteria, snagging a banana for later, and heads to the corner table where he and Dongwoo meet every morning. He’s really thankful that even though he’s technically living off-campus with Sungyeol in the apartment that technically belongs to Woohyun, his parents are still paying for a meal plan because otherwise he’d probably never eat anything but cup ramyun like Sungjong said. At least this way he gets a little variation in the crap he eats.

Dongwoo is eating a donut, the powder smearing all over his face, and Myungsoo shakes his head as he sits down, snagging a napkin and wiping it away. Dongwoo’s grin is as wide as ever, though his eyes are still heavy with sleep.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Myungsoo answers, and that’s it, and that’s why he likes breakfast with Dongwoo: Dongwoo’s not a morning person either and won’t press him into conversation before he’s ready. They eat in silence, neither of them paying attention to the other students moving around the big room. When they’re through, they toss their trays onto the conveyor belt and head outside, Myungsoo still carrying his half-finished bottle of orange juice.

The brilliant sunlight of the spring morning seems to make Dongwoo perk up a little bit. “You’re coming to my recital this week, right?” he asks excitedly, speaking for the first time since their greeting. “I’ve been working really hard, you know. You should come!” He’s doing that Dongwoo thing where he’s practically dancing as he walks, reminding Myungsoo of nothing so much as a dog who shakes his tail so hard it rattles his whole body. That’s Dongwoo.

“Trust me, there’s no way I’d pass up the opportunity to see you dance around in a leotard. I’m bringing my camera, too.” 

Dongwoo shoves him but he doesn’t look the slightest bit embarrassed. “You know that’s not really my scene. I just had to do it for the credit. But it’s actually pretty cool, modern dance. Like, crazy shit, but cool.”

“I’m sure,” Myungsoo says, taking another sip of his orange juice. “We’ll be there. Sungyeol has it circled and surrounded with stars on the calendar.” He pauses, considering. “It might be the only thing on the calendar, actually. We’re not good at keeping organized.”

“Are you two together yet?” That’s also Dongwoo: he has no use for a segue. 

“No,” Myungsoo answers shortly, chewing on his straw. He really hates when Dongwoo asks him this.

“What’s taking you two so long? I mean, you’re already living together and Woohyun is _never_ there. I’d have been all over him by now.”

“Like you’re all over Sunggyu-hyung? Who also lives with you and who Woohyun-hyung wants as much as you do?” Myungsoo asks dryly. 

Dongwoo flushes. “Whatever, that’s different. You two are made for each other.”

It makes Myungsoo ache to hear that. “He’s just not into me, I guess.”

Dongwoo bursts out laughing then, so loud and infectious that people passing by start grinning, too. So Dongwoo. Myungsoo waits until he recovers himself.

“No, really,” Dongwoo gasps, clutching his stomach. “What’s the real reason?”

“I’m serious! I climb into bed with him every night and he still hasn’t made a move! How much more obvious can I get?” Myungsoo knows he sounds surly, but he doesn’t care.

“That’s rough, man,” Dongwoo says, looking confused. “More obvious?” He cocks his head to the side and thinks. “You could wake him up with his dick in your mouth?”

“I’m not going to rape my best friend, hyung,” Myungsoo responds, voice dry. God, he can only imagine how traumatizing it would be if Sungyeol pulled away from him after him pulling a stunt like that. 

“Yeah, maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea.” He seems to be pondering it for a moment, then his brow clears and he shrugs. “I don’t know, man. Maybe just wait a while longer and he’ll come around.” He slaps Myungsoo’s shoulder and bounces off towards the performing arts building, leaving Myungsoo to trudge on to his history gen ed.

“Not likely,” he mutters. He’d thought so at first, too, thought maybe Sungyeol just wasn’t sure if Myungsoo liked him back. Myungsoo knows he can be a little under-responsive at times. But they’ve been best friends since they got assigned to room together freshman year and they’ve been living together at Woohyun’s place this entire year and Myungsoo keeps giving him all these hints that are so obvious they make him sort of cringe just to think about it and honestly if Sungyeol hasn’t made a move by now Myungsoo really just needs to make peace with the fact that he sees him only as a friend. 

Yeah. That’ll be easy.

Jieun is talking with Sooji when he sits down beside her, but she ends the conversation soon enough to turn to him. “Hey, oppa! Are you going to Hyuna-unnie’s party on Friday?”

Myungsoo shrugs. “Dunno.”

“Well, let me know when you do. Sooji can’t go, and I don’t want to be stuck there without at least someone I actually enjoy talking to, especially not at one of Hyuna’s parties, you know what they can be like.”

“Yeah, okay,” Myungsoo agrees. He likes Jieun a lot, and he doesn’t blame her for not wanting to show up somewhere without some company. He always feels awkward at parties, too, especially when he’s alone. Which is why he hasn’t been to one without one of his friends since that first disaster freshman year.

“And if you come, you should bring your boyfriend and whoever else,” Jieun adds, clicking her pen.

“Boyfriend?” Myungsoo echoes dully. He really shouldn’t ask. He knows exactly where this is going.

Jieun looks at him strangely. “Aren’t you and Sungyeol-oppa dating?”

She probably has no idea why he lets his head fall with a thunk onto the desk, but she just pats him anyways and lends him her notes after class.

After lunch with Hoya and Sungjong, he’s settled down on a bench in the square to enjoy the sunshine while he flips through his portfolio and makes sure everything is in order when he hears a couple of girls talking on the other side of the giant plant that separates his bench from the next one.

“I really am thinking of some kind of art major. That can’t be that hard, can it? And there’s this seriously hot guy in the photography department, too, I mean, ungodly gorgeous. He looks like he should be an actor or an idol or something.”

Myungsoo twitches, really hoping he won’t hear what he hears next.

“What, you mean Kim Myungsoo? Yeah, he’s smoking, but he’s a little strange, like always staring at walls and wearing black and lurking around with his camera and stuff. Plus, he hangs out with that Woohyun guy.”

Myungsoo tries really, really hard to focus on his pictures and block out what they’re saying. It doesn’t quite work.

“Nam Woohyun? From the business department? Oh, he’s hot, too!”

“Yeah, but he’s totally greasy. And into guys, I think. As for Myungsoo, isn’t he dating that tall, loud guy? The one who’s in all the plays?”

Myungsoo chokes, slamming his portfolio shut and shoving it into his bag, hurrying away, but not in time to escape hearing the first girl sigh and say, “Oh, well, that would be my luck. All the hot ones are gay.”

He keeps his head down after that, cheeks flushing and praying he won’t see anyone else he knows, but he passes Chanhee by the bell tower and is greeted with a big smile. “Hey, Myungsoo. How’s Sungyeol?”

Myungsoo can’t help it; the words torpedo out of him, fueled by frustration. “I’m not his boyfriend, okay? Why don’t you people talk to him yourself?”

Chanhee’s eyes go wide, startled, the smile falling off his face, and he hurries away, stammering an apology. Guilt smacks Myungsoo; Chanhee hadn’t even _meant_ it that way, it’s just that he and Sungyeol are good friends but they rarely get to see each other being on opposite sides of campus, so he’d probably really just wanted to know how Sungyeol was. And he’s such a nice guy he probably never gets yelled at. Myungsoo _would_ be the one to do it.

“I suck,” Myungsoo mutters under his breath, breaking into a half-run to make sure he makes it to class on time.

It’s such a relief to drop into his seat in his composition class and only be greeted by Sohee’s quiet smile. He knew there was a reason he likes spending time with Sohee more than almost any other person in the world—she never pries and she only ever talks when she has something to say. Completely unlike Sungyeol, who is loud and nosy and who also happens to be the person he likes spending time with the most. Who he’d like to spend a lot _more_ time with in a very specific way. Myungsoo groans and buries his head in his crossed arms, feeling the cool of the fake wood desk against his cheek.

“Rough day?” Sohee asks.

“No one will leave me _alone_ ,” Myungsoo mumbles. Sohee just laughs softly and turns her attention to the professor.

By the time he finally drags himself back to the apartment, fingers smelling of developing chemicals, he kind of never wants to hear Sungyeol’s name again. 

 

“So why haven’t you and Myungsoo banged yet? When I call and he says you can’t come to the phone because you're upside down at the moment, I want to think that means you two are trying out some sort of kinky new sex position, but you’re an idiot and were probably doing it fully clothed while he was on the other side of the room, right?”

Sungyeol rolls his eyes and looks away from Woohyun, trying to appear completely unruffled by the comment. He’s a good actor, always gets a juicy part in the drama department performances, but he’s pretty sure he’s turning pink. “Why can’t you mind your own business, hyung?”

Woohyun laughs, leaning back in his chair, the front two legs coming off the floor. The middle-aged lady who owns Sungyeol’s favorite coffee shop glares at him from behind her glasses, but Woohyun is oblivious. “This from the guy who just spent the last forty-five minutes planning how to torture one of his best friends simply because he thinks it’s funny?”

Well, he has a point there. Sungyeol takes a sip of his coffee. It’s his third cup. Since he got here. Sixth today. Maybe Sunggyu-hyung is right that he has a problem. “I prank because I love,” he says, using his finger to spin the napkin where he’d scribbled ‘Ways to Torture Hoya’ in his messy scrawl.

Woohyun snorts. “If that were the case, you’d be pranking Myungsoo night and day. And again I ask: why haven’t you banged yet?”

“Not everybody jumps into bed the second they realize they’re attracted to someone, hyung,” Sungyeol replies, knowing he’s being nasty and not caring. He’s been down since this morning when he left his best friend in his bed and he hasn’t felt himself since. Good thing the monologue he’d chosen for the peer evaluation had been an angsty one—Boah gave him top marks.

“It sure didn’t take you long to fall into bed with _me_ ,” Woohyun points out. Then he clasps his hands together and throws his eyes to the sky. “Ah, I remember it well. A young, impressionable freshman overwhelmed by my sexual prowess and virility—“

Sungyeol smacks him upside the head, shuddering. Woohyun’s chair legs hit the floor. “Sexual prowess and virility my ass. More like we were both drunk off our asses. At least I had an excuse—it was my first college party. You were already a sophomore, you should have known better.”

“You didn’t complain so much when we spent the next month and a half doing the dirty every spare moment we had,” Woohyun says with a smirk.

Sungyeol rolls his eyes again; he does that a lot when he’s with Woohyun. He’s right, though: they did have an awful lot of sex during that brief period of time during his first semester. It was good sex, too, certainly better than any Sungyeol had had with a few tentative girls and fumbling guy or two back during high school. It had burned out pretty quickly, though, with Woohyun getting distracted by Dongwoo and then following Sunggyu around like a puppy, and Sungyeol had taken all that time he had formerly spent having sex with Woohyun and had instead spent it getting to know his roommate better. Which was, in retrospect, a way better use of his time, since his roommate turned out to be his best friend slash love of his life. Besides, he and Woohyun settled into a comfortably snarky partners-in-crime dynamic and have been buddies ever since, gleefully terrorizing all of their friends with their combined powers of evil. So everything worked out for the best. Except for the whole being-in-love-with-his-best-friend thing.

“I don’t know how Dongwoo-hyung’s managed to hold on to you for so long. How has your greasy self not slipped right through his fingers?” Sungyeol demands.

Woohyun shrugs. “He’s a dancer. He can keep up.” He grins widely. “ _Great_ stamina.”

“Oh, God,” Sungyeol groans. “Please stop saying things like that.”

“Why? Does it make you jealous?”

“Of you?” Sungyeol scoffs. “Not likely.”

“I think you are,” Woohyun says, his smirk widening. “After all, I’m getting all the sex I can stand while you sit around pining for your best friend like you’re stuck in a Taylor Swift song.”

Sungyeol throws a wadded up napkin at him. It hits him right between the eyes. “I’m not _pining_.”

“Oh, please. You’ve only been in love with him for, like, forever.”

Sungyeol starts playing with the crumbs of his muffin on the table in front of him. It’s true; it does feel like forever since he realized he was in love with Myungsoo. But really, it hasn’t been quite a year yet. He can remember it in such sharp detail, though: the seven of them on one of their trips to Jeju, the SUV that Dongwoo rented since he’s the only one with a license. Myungsoo had stayed in the car while the rest of them went to get snacks, and by the time they came back, he was curled up sleeping, his cheek and arm on the armrest, one of his stupid fedoras in his lap. That position couldn’t possibly have been comfortable, and Sungyeol should have kicked him awake with a shout immediately. That’s what he typically would have done. But instead he kind of just stood there with his hand on the door, watching Myungsoo sleep, his heart folding itself into a paper crane in his chest. And that’s when he thought, _I’m in love with Myungsoo_ for the first time. Since then, he’s thought it about seventeen times a day—or more—but that first moment is the one he still sees when he closes his eyes.

In his dreams, it doesn’t end with Woohyun shoving him into the car and Myungsoo jolting awake when Sungyeol tumbled into his lap. In his dreams, he straightens Myungsoo up—he can sleep through almost anything—and pulls his head up so that his cheek can rest on Sungyeol’s shoulder for the rest of the drive. And maybe when they climb out of the van, Myungsoo kisses him sleepy and long, a smile on his face. And maybe after that they have sex on every surface of Woohyun’s parents’ beach house and nobody cares because all the rest of their friends have disappeared somewhere. 

God, he’s so pathetic. He lets his head fall onto the sticky wood of the table. “I know,” he moans. 

“So why the fuck haven’t you jumped his bones yet?”

“Because I’m still not sure if he wants me to.”

Woohyun laughs again, and he’s probably just as delighted by Sungyeol’s pain as he is mocking what Sungyeol just said. Bastard. “Please. You should see the way he looks at you. It’s so sappy even I start to believe in true love.”

Sungyeol flushes, raising his head. “I think he just thinks of me as a friend.”

“Bullshit,” Woohyun says bluntly, picking up the missile napkin and using it to brush crumbs from Sungyeol’s forehead. “I’m telling you, there is nothing Myungsoo wants more in the world than for you to shove him up against a wall and fuck him senseless. I’m sure he’s always dropping hints he thinks are obvious but really aren’t.”

“Well,” Sungyeol starts slowly, knowing he’ll regret admitting this but feeling the need to say it anyway. He’s been over it a million times in his own head, so much that just thinking about it makes his head start to spin like a fairground ride. It might be nice to have an outsider’s perspective. “I do always wake up in the morning and find him in the bed with me.” His cheeks are on fire now, he’s sure.

Woohyun just stares at him in disbelief for a moment, then: “Kim Myungsoo, you little slut!” he crows admiringly, laughing so hard the barista glares at him. Honestly, she’d probably have kicked them out long ago if Sungyeol didn’t spend almost every spare won he has here. “I never knew he had that in him! I don’t give him enough credit—here I was talking about him not being obvious enough!”

“But it might not be like that!” Sungyeol protests, his cheeks still burning. “He sleepwalks, you know, and you know how he is about cuddling. It’s probably like an unconscious thing.”

Woohyun stares at him like he’s an idiot. “Oh, yeah, totally. Which is why on all the occasions when we’ve all shared hotel rooms or he’s fallen asleep on one of our couches, the rest of us wake up with him in bed with us, too.”

Sungyeol kicks out at him, his foot jarring Woohyun’s chair so that it slides back a few inches. “I’m just not _sure_ , okay? And he’s too important for me to ruin everything if he doesn’t feel the same way.”

Woohyun just looks at him for a long moment, and Sungyeol squirms under the scrutiny. He can’t believe he just said that out loud to Woohyun, king of grease who hasn’t said anything in sincerity in his entire life. But after a moment Woohyun just sighs, running a hand over his face. “Okay, I’m going to say this once. I don’t know why you all don’t know this already, I feel like I’m saying it _all the time_.” Sungyeol thinks he hears Woohyun mutter something about Kibum, but then Woohyun pins him with his gaze again, his voice flat but firm. “Look. If you’re as good of friends as you think you are—and as close as you look to everybody else on the planet—then nothing can really ruin that. It might be awkward for a while, trying to get used to the idea, but on the infinitesimally small chance that Myungsoo isn’t every bit as crazy in love with you as you are with him, he’ll get over it. Because that’s what friends do.”

Sungyeol stares at him in silence, the click of spoons against porcelain behind them and the humming of the espresso maker the only sounds in the room. Then: “Oh my fucking _god_ , you were just _sincere_ , you actually _meant_ that, I never thought I’d live to see the day!”

Woohyun scowls and crosses his arms as Sungyeol slaps the table he’s laughing so hard. “See if I ever try to give you advice again,” Woohyun sniffs, taking a sip of his tea as he Sungyeol continues to vent his mirth. 

“You actually just _said_ that!” Sungyeol’s voice cracks on nearly every word as he laughs his throaty laugh. A sulky look rises on Woohyun’s face.

“Whatever. I’m out of here.” Woohyun stands up, pushing his chair back with a bump of his thighs, and giving Sungyeol another glare before turning.

“Thanks for the very insightful advice, hyung!” Sungyeol shouts after him, earning the one-fingered salute from Woohyun and a furious look from the shop owner for his efforts. He laughs for a while because that was the most priceless thing he’s ever heard in his _life_ , but one he’s calmed down he sighs and starts shoving his stuff into his bag, making sure to leave an extra big tip for the shop owner in apology for their rowdiness. He heads towards home, a few blocks away and just off-campus, gnawing on his lip and trying to convince himself that Woohyun’s not right.

 

 

Myungsoo keeps his head bent over his laptop when he hears the door open, but he pulls one of his earbuds out of his ear to let it dangle down his shirt. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey.” Sungyeol sounds really tired, letting his bag thump to the floor and kicking off his shoes. Myungsoo’s not actually looking at him, but he knows the sounds. And his friend.

“That bad?” Myungsoo asks, deleting a line from his history paper. “Did you get stuck with one of the pretentious hipster drama kids grading you again?”

“No, it was Boah, actually. She gave me full marks.” Sungyeol flops down onto the sofa beside him, stretching his legs out and resting them on top of the crate-coffee table.

“That’s awesome.” Myungsoo finally looks up at him and blinks. He looks really, really tired. “Why are you looking like that, then? Didn’t you and Woohyun have one of your World Domination Plotting sessions?”

Sungyeol snorts. “Yeah.” He brightens for just a moment. “I think we’ll get a lot of torture material out of this girl. Hoya’s _gone_.” The smile slips away. “Just a long day. You know.”

“Yeah.” Myungsoo really, really does.

“Ramyun?” Sungyeol asks, sounding anything but enthusiastic.

“Oh! Actually, Sungjong had leftovers! He brought them by earlier—they’re in the fridge.”

“Well, I guess this day isn’t a total waste, then,” Sungyeol says, sounding more cheerful and heading over to the kitchen. Myungsoo turns back to his paper as Sungyeol pulls the containers out of the fridge. “What is this stuff?”

“No idea,” Myungsoo answers. “He was probably trying to be fancy and impressive.”

Sungyeol examines it for a moment from several different angles, then shrugs. “It smelled pretty good last night. And it can’t be worse than what we usually eat.” He shovels some of whatever it is out onto a couple of plates and heads to the microwave.

“Chanhee said hi,” Myungsoo says suddenly. “I think he might think I’m crazy now—I might have chewed his head off for no reason.”

Sungyeol laughs, turning to look at him, and he’s just standing there in the kitchen, barefoot and in one of his worn v-neck shirts, but the sight of him makes Myungsoo want to—well, do something. It’s such an overwhelming feeling, the way Sungyeol makes him feel sometimes, that he doesn’t know what the right reaction is, only that it fills him up with something so big that he knows he _should_ act. Instead, he just flips a page in his history book.

“I’ll apologize for you next time I see him. Maybe he’ll be at Dongwoo’s recital thing. I think everyone we know is going to be there—it’s going to be _awesome_.”

The reference to Dongwoo’s recital makes Myungsoo think of the conversation he and Dongwoo had directly after that, and that makes him flush. “Yeah,” is all he says as the microwave dings and Sungyeol pulls the plate out, burning his fingers and yelping.

They eat in front of the TV, not just because they have no table anymore but also because that’s what they usually do. A rerun of a terribly melodramatic drama is on, the kind Sungyeol relishes picking apart, but his attempts at commentary tonight are half-hearted. Whatever this orange-y gunk of Sungjong’s is, it actually tastes really good, so Myungsoo goes back for seconds. They toss the dishes into the sink—where they’ll stay until Woohyun comes by and yells at them that his kitchen sink is not a laboratory—and conk out on the couch again.

“Jieun mentioned something about Hyuna-noona’s party,” Myungsoo says idly, barely watching what’s going on onscreen.

“Yeah?” Sungyeol, sitting beside him and jiggling his leg, clears his throat. “We should go. Maybe you’ll…meet someone.”

At his words, Myungsoo’s heart drops down to somewhere around the vicinity of his ankles. “Oh,” he says, the words cutting his throat as they squeeze out. “I guess.”

Sungyeol freezes beside him, his leg pausing mid-jiggle and turns to Myungsoo with a dazed look on his face. “Wait. You aren’t, like, asexual or something are you?”

“What? _No_!” Myungsoo’s never been so horrified in his life.

“I mean, it’s cool if you are,” Sungyeol continues, and his face is absolutely white. “I mean, some people just aren’t interested in sex and—“

“I’m _not_ ,” Myungsoo cuts him off as quickly as he can, his hands starting to shake. “I mean, I _am_ interested in se—“ Myungsoo isn’t a big blusher, but he’s pretty sure his cheeks are flushing now. “I mean, I’m not asexual.”

“Oh. Okay.” Sungyeol still looks a little shell-shocked. “It’s just, you haven’t been with anyone the entire time we’ve been in college and you’re always, like, cuddling with people but not in the way Woohyun does and—“

“I just—haven’t found the right person yet.” Myungsoo thinks he’s going to throw up, saying those words. He never lies to Sungyeol, but that’s a whopper. _I have found the right person—the only person—he just doesn’t want me back._

“Oh. Okay.” 

They lapse into silence for a moment, more awkward than any Myungsoo can ever remember having with Sungyeol. They never used to be awkward together, not even after Myungsoo realized he loved him. They’ve always been comfortable, always been easy, that’s what they _do_. It makes this awkwardness now so much worse. Myungsoo picks at something crusted on the throw pillow, head bent, miserable.

And then a thought occurs to him, jerking his head up and setting his heart racing again.

“You haven’t—this whole time—you didn’t think I was—?”

He can’t even finish the question, but Sungyeol’s eyes go wide. “No! I just—I didn’t! I just thought of it, but I haven’t thought that and—“

Myungsoo deflates. “Oh. Okay.”

More silence, and Myungsoo knows that Sungyeol isn’t paying any more attention to TV in front of them than he is. God, this is hell.

“If you were to—“ Sungyeol stops when his voice cracks, clears his throat again. “If you were to find the right person,” he tries again, voice still shrill. “Would it be a girl or…?”

“A guy,” Myungsoo answers quickly, but then realizes that that’s not exactly what Sungyeol means. Because Myungsoo has crushed on girls, too, is fascinated by the way they smell and the curves of their bodies and especially their hair, especially when it’s long. But despite that, there’s only been one person who he’s ever really _wanted_. “Probably.”

“Oh. Okay.” A beat. “So what’s your type, then? Because I could probably set you up with someone if you—“

“ _No_!” Myungsoo really hadn’t thought it would be possible to be even more horrified than he was a moment ago, but the thought of _Sungyeol_ trying to find him someone to date is enough to almost make him cry.

“I just thought it might be nice to try out a few dates, you know, check out your options?” Sungyeol’s laugh is loud and awkward and Myungsoo _hates_ this. 

“No. Just…no.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The melodrama’s credits are running across the screen, and Myungsoo can hear the sound of Hoya’s hip-hop bass from next door. “What about you?” He can’t believe he’s asking this. “You haven’t—with anyone—not since Woohyun—“

Sungyeol cuts him off hurriedly. “I haven’t found the right person either.” And now Myungsoo’s heart is under the soles of his feet. Sungyeol forces a laugh. “I learned my lesson about the casual stuff from Woohyun, you know?” He nudges Myungsoo, and Myungsoo jerks away without thinking. Sungyeol looks surprised and a little hurt—Myungsoo has never once pulled away from him. But right now Myungsoo’s heart is so raw, scraping against the ground, and he thinks that if Sungyeol touches him he’ll shatter.

Sungyeol laughs again, that fake laugh that sounds even more throaty than usual. Myungsoo’s never heard him sound like that before, but it’s so uncomfortable that it makes him feel so very far away. “Too bad you’re not interested in me, right?”

Myungsoo freezes. “Not interested?” he echoes, shock so thick that his voice is barely audible. He’s suddenly so cold that he thinks someone could come along and just snap off his fingers like icicles.

Again with the forced laugh. “Yeah, wouldn’t that be convenient? I mean, we’re already best friends and we live together and—“

“ _Not interested_!” The words explode out of him, the power of them forcing Myungsoo to his feet. He stares down at a wide-eyed Sungyeol, fists clenched. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘not interested’?”

Sungyeol blinks, sputters. “I—you’re not into me—you think of me as a best friend—I—right?”

“ _I_ ’m not into _you_?” Myungsoo demands, and his eyesight is going hazy around the edges with frustration. “I’m so in love with you it’s made me completely worthless! You’re the one who wants us to just stay friends!” 

Sungyeol shoots to his feet, then, his face twisting up in frustration that matches Myungsoo’s. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been in love with you for eternity!”

“Well, why didn’t you let me know?” Myungsoo yells.

“Why didn’t _you_?” Sungyeol shoots back.

Myungsoo cannot _believe_ this guy. “I climb into bed with you every fucking night, you idiot! What part of that is _not_ letting you know I’m interested?”

“Yeah, well, that’s just you!” Sungyeol manages to shout and stammer at the same time. It’s kind of impressive. 

“What?” Is he _insane_? Has Myungsoo somehow managed to be best friends with him for this long and missed the fact that Sungyeol is _certifiable_? 

Sungyeol’s also turned red now. “You and Dongwoo-hyung are always, like, cuddling and shit, and it doesn’t mean anything!”

“But I don’t _sleep_ with him, dumbass!”

“Oh.”

They stare at each other for a long moment, and then Myungsoo hurls himself at Sungyeol.

 

The kiss is desperate, messy, teeth and tongues and lips and, oh, God, it’s _Myungsoo_ and Sungyeol is going to spontaneously combust except there won’t be anything spontaneous about it because combustion is inevitable because this is _Myungsoo_.

Sungyeol’s pretty sure that he could keep kissing him forever, except that Myungsoo suddenly pulls back. He’s gasping, and he hunches over immediately, and Sungyeol just stares because, yeah, it was a good kiss, a fucking fantastic kiss, but he didn’t expect Myungsoo to react like _that_ —

And then he realizes that Myungsoo is laughing. Laughing so hard he can’t even stand up straight, his arms coming up to cradle his stomach, the sound as extreme as sobs. 

“What the _fuck_?” Sungyeol demands, smacking him, and Myungsoo just laughs harder.

“I—you—“ It’s almost impossible to make out actual words through Myungsoo’s laughter. “We both—and we didn’t—all along—“

And then the humor slams into Sungyeol, too, and he’s laughing almost as hard as Myungsoo—except never as hard as Myungsoo, because when Myungsoo laughs at Sungyeol, he laughs harder than anyone else has ever laughed. Always. That was one of the first things Sungyeol liked about Myungsoo: that he thought Sungyeol was just so much funnier than Sungyeol knew he really was. It made him feel special, it always has, and so this feels right: laughing with Myungsoo now, both of them a little lightheaded because of the kiss and the emotions that came before it, neither managing to quite believe they’ve wasted so much time and might have gone on wasting it if Myungsoo hadn’t gotten so angry.

Kissing and laughing at the same time is something of a challenge, but it’s also strangely sexy, and afterwards Sungyeol is never sure whether they end up on the floor robbed of breath because of the kissing or because of the laughter. Maybe, with Myungsoo, it doesn’t make any difference.

 

“Is someone at the door?” Myungsoo asks absently. Sungyeol isn’t sure why he’s talking about the door when he should be trying to recover his brains and shove them back into his head after what just happened. Sungyeol can’t even feel his fingers and toes anymore, it had been that amazing, and he’s not sure he’s ever going to find the energy to get up off the floor again, not when he just poured every single emotion he’s ever felt in his life into fucking Myungsoo. Or making love to him. Or whatever. It was kind of both.

Myungsoo is currently lying half on top of him, his nose pressed into Sungyeol’s neck, and he’s done that loads before—coming up behind him and backhugging him and smelling him (and how could Sungyeol have possibly been so thick as to think he wasn’t interested? It’s only been an hour since he figured it out, but he’s already forgotten what it was like to not be this close to Myungsoo)—but it’s different now, so much more. Sungyeol uses the last bit of energy he has to tighten his arm around Myungsoo’s waist. God, that was amazing. So much better than anything he’d ever done with Woohyun, and probably most of that is because he wasn’t in love with Woohyun and he _is_ in love with Myungsoo—and Myungsoo loves him back!—but maybe it’s also because they’re just so comfortable with each other, like all the knowledge that they have of each other about everything else had transferred over into helping them figure out what the other likes in bed. 

Or not in bed, actually, because they never made it that far. Sungyeol had dragged himself away from Myungsoo’s mouth at one point to run and grab the lube out of his underwear drawer (where it had been since he and Woohyun ended things, waiting in expectation and torturing Sungyeol whenever he saw it), but he’d come back to the living room and let Myungsoo drag him down beside him onto the floor and that’s where he and Myungsoo had had sex for the first time. 

Fuck, he really loves this floor, scene of all of his dreams coming true. He thinks that if he ever recovers, he’ll roll over and kiss it. But it doesn’t seem like that he’ll ever have the energy for that, so he just taps his fingertips against it fondly, closing his eyes in happiness as he feels Myungsoo breathe against his neck.

“No, really,” Myungsoo asks. “Is someone at the door?”

“Shit!” Sungyeol yelps, because, yes, the handle is turning and they should really remember to lock that thing but they always leave it open so their friends can come in and he hadn’t had any idea that this was going to happen so how could he have known that he was going to need to lock it it’s not like he’s clairvoyant or something he couldn’t have ever suspected that this would actually happen and besides Woohyun has a key anyway and _the door is opening_.

And that energy that Sungyeol thought was gone forever surges back through him. He and Myungsoo both shoot to their feet, trying to sort out whose limbs are whose, making a grab at scattered clothes. “No time,” Myungsoo gasps, and then shoves him towards the windows. The blinds are pulled, thank God, so they scramble to get themselves behind the thick cream curtains, and manage it just as Woohyun walks into the room.

“I came for my toaster,” he’s saying as he strolls in, “Dongwoo wants to experiment with different kinds of toast and—“ He stops as soon as he sees them, staring at them blankly. “Why are you naked?”

Sungyeol looks over at Myungsoo, who’s holding the other curtain to him like he’s looking out of the shower, and Myungsoo looks back. “Uh….”

“I TOLD YOU.” The words explode out of Woohyun and he starts laughing, practically dancing in glee. “Oh my God, I _told_ you all along, you fucking idiot, I told you he wanted you back! Did you screw him against the wall? Did he look at you all sappy? Oh my God, I _knew_ it.”

Sungyeol glares at him—Woohyun is such an insufferable ass when he’s right; nobody enjoys other people being wrong more than Woohyun—but then Myungsoo starts cracking up, too, and Sungyeol can’t resist the way his face scrunches up and he’s laughing too, the two of them looking at each other, and _fuck_ , he loves Myungsoo so much and _Myungsoo loves him back_ , and the sex is amazing and they’re going to be together forever and—

“No, but seriously,” Woohyun says, suddenly sober. “Where’s my toaster?”

**Author's Note:**

> Things I cannot claim credit for: Woohyun being the one to own the apartment but living with his hyungs (and being Sungyeol's pseudo-ex), "no Sungyeol can’t come to the phone he’s up side down at the moment” (I rephrased a bit), Sungyeol volunteering to take the futon but still waking up with Myungsoo on top of him, Woohyun going to Sungyeol and Myungsoo’s (his) place to get his toaster and “Why are you guys naked?” All of these things sprang from the brilliant mind of whelmish.


End file.
